Shannon's Way

by A. J. Cronin

  Chapter Two

  Yet nothing, nothing, could depress my spirits, nor damp my satisfaction at the prospect of resuming my research after those weeks of maddening delay.

  As I had surmised, my official duties were pleasant and inexacting. The actual capacity of the hospital was small, not more than fifty patients when absolutely full, and now, since no epidemics were prevalent, at this particular season we had only about a dozen children, all convalescent, mostly from simple measles and, no matter how conscientiously I prolonged my round of the wards, I was finished, and free, by noon.

  The test-room was better than I had imagined. In the cupboards and drawers I found a variety of equipment which I could convert and use. Material accumulates easily in hospitals—ordered in a burst of enthusiasm, it is put away and forgotten. My own pieces of apparatus were soon installed and, by mortgaging my first month’s salary, I redeemed my microscope from Hillier’s. Already, on the hospital note-paper, I had initiated a lively correspondence with several doctors in other rural areas affected by the epidemic, and from the specimens which they kindly sent me, together with those which still remained from Dreem, I began again to try to cultivate Bacillus C.

  All this, of course, was achieved discreetly. I took care to perform my official duties scrupulously, and I was pleasantly assiduous in my attentions to the matron, who, during these early days, beneath her smiling heartiness, was studying me rather as an experienced pugilist might study an opponent for the first round in the ring.

  She was a strange mixture. When she came to Dalnair, in the “good old days” lamented by Pim—whom I soon found to be a professional grumbler—the hospital had been slackly run. Step by step she had changed the system, worked herself into the good graces of the Hospital Committee, won into her own hands complete authority. Now she managed the place, from attic to cellar, with firmness, economy, and tireless efficiency.

  “I’m at her beck and call all day long,” Pim confided in me with woeful dignity as, seated on an upturned pail, he was taking all morning to polish the ancient ambulance. “All my little perks have gone. Why, would you believe it, sir, she even checks the soap for my outdoor wash-room!”

  Although I took breakfast and supper alone, it was the Dalnair custom for doctor and matron to lunch together. Thus at one o’clock each day she came to my room for “tiffin,” as she called it, seated herself at table, and tucked her napkin into her bosom. She was fond of her food, especially of spicy dishes and curries, which appeared frequently upon the menu, served with mango chutney and shredded coconut. Heaping her plate she would mix the ingredients thoroughly, then delve into the savoury mess, using a spoon—the only way to eat curry, she told me—and washing her mouthfuls down with lime-juice and soda. She was proud of her Bengali recipes, and had a fund of anecdotes bearing upon her Army experiences, which went with them, her favourite being a spirited account of how she and Colonel Sutler of the Bengal Medical Service had fought the cholera in Bogra in 1902.

  Despite these repetitious stories, she had a sense of humour which, although too boisterous for my taste, had saved me thus far from disliking her. She might be a little martinet, yet her deep chuckle was disarming, and on occasions she could be kind. To those of her nurses who worked well and did not cross her she was, on the whole, good-hearted and fair. Over a period of years she had done her best with the committee—no easy task—to improve the working conditions and inadequate pay of her staff. In a hospital such as Dalnair there was always the serious risk of contracting an infectious fever, and when a nurse was laid up in this fashion Miss Trudgeon, who might very well have slanged her head off the week before, looked after her like a mother.

  One of her predilections was a decided fondness for the game of draughts; and occasionally, early in the evening, she honoured me with an invitation to her room to play. Now my great-grandfather, past-master of the art, had taught me, when I was a boy, all the deep and diabolical subtleties of “the dam-brod” and during our innumerable encounters across the chequered board I had acquired from him that particular brand of low cunning which lures an opponent to his doom. At my first meeting with the matron it took me only thirty seconds to discover that she was far from being a match for me—indeed, I was hard put to it to lose. Yet lose I did, with sound diplomacy, upon every occasion, to her extreme delight. When she had beaten me she would lie back in her chair, crowing with satisfaction, taunting me with my inability to get the better of her, and winding up, invariably, with an account of the historic game she had played against Colonel Sutler, during the cholera epidemic, at Bogra, in 1902.

  The provocation was severe, yet keeping in mind my main objective, I suffered it with commendable patience. One evening, however, she went over the score, and her taunts got under my skin.

  “Poor fellow,” she jeered. “Where are your brains? How on earth did you get your medical degree? I’ll have to give you lessons. Did I ever tell you the story of my game with …”

  “I’m beginning to know it off by heart,” I snapped. “Set up your men again.”

  She did so, shaking with laughter at having finally provoked me. The game began, and in five moves I got through her defence and wiped the board with her.

  “Eh, what a fluke!” she exclaimed, hardly able to believe her eyes. “ Let’s have another.”

  “By all means.”

  This time she played more cautiously, but she had not the ghost of a chance. Twice I got three men for one, and in four minutes she was beaten.

  There was a strained silence. Her face had turned a dusky red. But still she couldn’t think that her second defeat was anything but the wildest chance.

  “I shan’t let you get away with that. One more game.”

  I ought, at this stage, to have used better judgement, but I was still smarting from her sharp tongue. Besides, these repeated sessions were encroaching upon the time available for my work; I wanted to put an end to them. Using the double shift opening that old Dandie Gow had perfected, I sacrificed four men in rapid succession; then, with two sweeping moves, cleared every one of her pieces off the board.

  The triumphant smile which had begun to dawn upon her face stiffened to an angry grimace, while the veins of her neck and forehead swelled. She shut the board and rattled the pieces into their box.

  “That will be all for this evening, thank you, Doctor.”

  Already regretting what I had done, I gave a deprecating laugh.

  “Extraordinary how these games turned out.”

  “Most extraordinary,” she agreed stiffly. “There seems to be a little more in you than meets the eye.”

  “I can’t always be so absurdly lucky. I’m sure you’ll win next time.”

  Her exasperation got the better of her. She stood up.

  “What do you take me for? A complete fool?”

  “Oh, no, indeed, Matron.”

  With an effort she controlled herself.

  “Close the door, then, on your way out.”

  Back in my room, I began to see how stupid I had been in offending her, and with hands thrust moodily in my pockets I stood staring out of my window, more annoyed with myself than with her.

  At that moment, a burst of rapid reports struck my ear, and a red motor-cycle swung round the drive and came to rest outside my room. As the bareheaded rider heaved the heavy machine on to its stand and removed his goggles I recognized him, with a start of surprise. It was Luke Law.

  I opened the window.

  “Hello, Luke.”

  “Hello, yourself.”

  His cheerful smile dispelled my misgivings and, when he had come into the room, by the simple expedient of sliding over the sill, he took off his long leather gauntlets and shook me by the hand.

  “I’ve brought you the bike,” he announced and, observing my mystified expression, added: “ You remember? I said I would lend it you for a spell.”

  “Don’t you want it yourself?”

  “No.” He shook his head. “Not for the next f
ew weeks anyway. I’m going to the Tyne Home Bakery in Newcastle. To learn how they fire stone-milled flour. Father knows the manager.”

  I had not expected this kindness and felt some embarrassment in accepting it, but Luke brushed aside my protests with the most natural air in the world and, stretching himself out in a chair, lit up one of my cigarettes.

  “Yours truly isn’t allowed to smoke.” He grinned. “ But I do like a fag—and I have one too, when I think they won’t smell it on me. You’ve no idea what a sell it is, being held in at every turn. I want to be like the other fellows.” He blew smoke rebelliously, yet humorously, down his nose. “And I wish I could do the work I’m set on. Who wants to be a hand baker? Stone-milled flour! Huh! Twenty years behind the times. I want to work with machinery, with bicycles and motor cars, have my own little factory. I’m good at that.… I can make things go. If only I could modernize our plant … put in mechanical mixers … an electric oven …”

  “You’ll do it … later.”

  “Well,” he sighed. “Maybe.”

  I could see that, despite his youth and good nature, he was beginning to chafe at parental restrictions, and to demand the right to his own existence.

  After a pause he threw me a glance which, while holding nothing of reproach, while deprecating, in fact, half-humorously, the folly and weakness of the whole female sex, nevertheless conveyed a certain sense of troubled compunction.

  “We’re a little under the weather at home, Robert. It’s Jean …”

  To hide my feelings, I bent forward and took a cigarette from the box. The very mention of that name had sent a wave of feeling over me. Luke was so absurdly like her, with his open expression, his brown eyes, curly hair, and fresh, brown colouring, that at this moment I scarcely dared look at him.

  “Hasn’t she been well?” I asked, cautiously.

  “She’s been awful!” he exclaimed. “At first she went about raging at the terrible scoundrels and blackguards in the world.” He chuckled. “That was you, of course. Then gradually she fell into the dumps. And for the last few weeks she’s done nothing but cry. She tries to hide it, but I can tell.”

  “Perhaps she’s worried about her exam,” I suggested. “ Doesn’t she sit the final this summer?”

  “No exam ever upset Jean like that.” He paused and added in a confidential, man-of-the-world tone: “You know what its all about as well as I do. Here! She asked me to give you this note.”

  After some fumbling in the inside pocket of his Norfolk jacket, he produced a folded slip of paper, which I accepted with a curious acceleration of my pulse.

  “DEAR MR. SHANNON,—Having discovered, by the merest chance, that my brother proposes visiting you on some business of his own, I take the opportunity of sending you these few lines.

  “The fact is that I have something to say to you, something quite impersonal and unimportant, and if you should, by any chance, be in Winton next Wednesday, I am wondering if you would care to have tea with me at Grant’s in Botanic Road, about five o’clock. Probably you have something better to do. Possibly you have forgotten all about me. In which case, it does not matter. Please excuse my presumption.

  “ I am, “ Yours as always, “ J EAN L AW .

  “PS.—I was walking alone in the High Parks last Saturday and found out why we did not see the White Cattle. There has been an outbreak in the herd and a number of them have died. Isn’t it a shame?

  “PPS.—I know I have many faults, but at least I speak the truth.”

  I put down the note and gazed across at young Law’s inquiring and ingenuous face, wondering if Jean had not arranged the whole affair—Luke’s visit, the offer of the motor-cycle, the invitation to tea upon the following week with quiet yet definite intention. My earlier moodiness had vanished, currents of elation were tingling all over my skin.

  “You’ll go?” asked Luke.

  “I suppose so,” I answered, in a voice which, despite the beating of my heart, I tried to make prosaic and mature.

  “Women are a nuisance, aren’t they?” Luke said, with sudden sympathy.

  I laughed and, in a rush of spirits, pressed him to remain for supper. We had a good meal together, followed by coffee and cigarettes, during which, as superior beings, we loosened our collars and discussed fast motor-cycles, aeroplane design, the brotherhood of man, electric dough-mixers, and the incomprehensible perverseness of the opposite sex.

  Chapter Three

  Winton was a drab enough city, grey, beneath a pall of smoke, ringed by belching chimneys, much rained on, oppressed by monumental architecture and some fearful statuary; but its glory, if it could lay claim to glory, was in its tea-rooms. They animated the dreary streets, scores of them, little oases of rest and refreshment where, having traversed the outer premises devoted to the sale of cakes and cookies, the Winton citizens—clerks, typists, shop girls, students, even staid merchants and men of business—gathered at all hours of the day around white-capped tables loaded with scones and shortbread and innumerable pastries, to seek solace in a cup of tea or coffee.

  Of these establishments the one most patronized by members of the University was Grant’s, where, in addition to a celebrated make of cream buns, one could enjoy the select sense of “tone” conveyed by an interior of dark oak, with real oil paintings, by members of the Scottish Academy, interspersed with crossed dirks and claymores, upon the panelled walls.

  Upon the following Wednesday, then, with a strange mingling of eagerness and apprehension, I arrived at Grant’s. I had decided to take all the afternoon off work, for I had a special errand which I wished to do in connection with my research. I was early for my appointment, but even so, Miss Law was earlier. As I entered the crowded café, filled with the buzz of conversation and the tinkle of teaspoons, a small figure half rose at the back, beneath the most formidable of the claymores, and, with a nervous gesture, beckoned me to the table which, in the face of considerable opposition, she was bravely reserving for us. Otherwise she did not greet me, and as I crushed my way forward and sat down silently beside her I observed that, in contrast to those easy days of “cool” and sweater, she was dressed with some severity in a dark grey costume and a prim black hat. Also she was pale, extremely pale, definitely thinner, and, though she exerted herself to conceal it, quite painfully agitated.

  There was a constrained pause while, by the process of crooking her forefinger and holding it aloft, she at last overcame the difficulty of securing service.

  “Lemon or cream?”

  These were her first words, and she made the inquiry in subdued tones without daring to look at me, while the waitress stood over us, impatiently fingering her pencil.

  I ordered lemon tea.

  “And would you care for cream buns?”

  I agreed to the buns, adding:

  “Of course, this is my treat.”

  “No,” she answered with quivering lips, but a firming of her chin. “I asked you.”

  We sat in silence till the waitress returned, then, in silence, began our repast.

  “Very full here, isn’t it?” I ventured at length. “Popular sort of place.”

  “Yes, it is.” A pause. “ Extremely popular. And deservedly so.”

  “Oh, yes. Wonderful buns these are.”

  “Are they? I’m very glad.”

  “Won’t you have one?”

  “No, thank you. I’m not particularly hungry.”

  “I was sorry to hear about your White Cattle.”

  “Yes, poor things … it’s been quite bad.”

  Another pause.

  “Rather a wet summer it’s been so far, don’t you think?”

  “Very wet. I don’t know what the weather’s coming to.”

  A still longer pause. Then, nerving herself with a sip of tea—and I noticed that her hand shook as she lowered her cup—she turned to me with a look of serious intentness.

  “Mr. Shannon,” she exclaimed with a gulp, and all in one breath. “I’ve been wondering if,
after all, it would be possible for us to be friends.”

  While I stared at her, nonplussed, she went on, her colour coming and going, her voice breaking occasionally, as she strove to be calm and reasonable.

  “When I say friends, I mean friends … nothing less, nothing more. Friendship is such a wonderful thing. And one meets it so seldom. True friendship, that is to say. Of course, you may feel that you don’t wish to be friends with me. I’m just nothing. And I admit it was stupid of me to take things so much to heart and quarrel with you. But now I see that you were only joking, and that I was very childish about it. After all, we are practical, adult people, aren’t we? We do belong to different religions, but although that’s a serious thing, it isn’t a crime, at least it’s no bar to our having an occasional cup of tea together. It would be a great pity if we stopped being friends, simply for nothing … and drifted apart … like ships that pass in the night … I mean, if we never saw each other again … when, if we were sensible we could be meeting often, that’s to say, once in a while, as friends …”

  She broke off, playing with her teaspoon, a bright flush upon her cheeks, her brown eyes bright also, rather frightened, yet resolutely meeting mine.

  “Well,” I said, doubtfully. “ It’s a little difficult, isn’t it? I have my work. And you’re studying hard for your exam.”

  “Yes, I know you’re busy. And I suppose I have to keep at it, too.” There was a strange lack of enthusiasm in the voice of this once-eager student of Pathology, and she added quickly, as though pleading for a rational approach to the whole question of the acquirement of knowledge: “ We have to take a spell off once in a while. I mean, it’s impossible to work all the time.”

  There was a silence. As though conscious of her high colour, she at last lowered her gaze and drew back in the chair, to hide herself from the curiosity of the tea-room. Glancing at her covertly, I was amazed that I should ever have treated her with disdain. Her flush, her lowered lashes, throwing a soft shadow upon the soft bloom of her cheek, gave her a sensitive, yes, a quite angelic air. Nothing, not her prim black kid gloves, nor the old-fashioned round gold watch she wore upon one wrist, not even her absurd hard little hat, could spoil the stinging charm of her beauty.